Laptops - What to know when buying?

So recently mine has gone to shit really, was a poor design and had problems from the start.

So it's time for a new one.

Note: The budget im going with is anywhere between $1,000 - $1,500 (NZD)
- Raid 25man wow but also a uni student so it needs to be a mix of practical and fun.

Essentially, performance is desired but not crucial, like I said it's also for work. I just want one currently that isn't having 24/7 problems with chrome, handling multitasking like its got 1gb of ram and a dual core processor (when really, it has 4gb of ram and a quad core. But acts slow as hell).

My question regarding is though:

- What do I look out for?
- What do I want?
- What brand do I avoid?
- What rating ?

well, for starters, you need to decide what size, common are 15" and 17" with smaller 11", 13" and 14" sizes being in the ultrabook range, and larger 18" and 22" being in the workstation/production range

for gaming you want something with a discrete graphics card, most are using Nvidia cards, and of them, you want to make sure it's a GTX model and not a GT

brands to avoid generally are based on customer support, of those, Asus and MSI, that being said, Asus and MSI both make some of the best notebooks, but if there is a problem you will not be having a fun time dealing with their support lines

You want an Intel I5 or I7 CPU of the 3xxx series.
AMD Radeon 76xx, Nvidia Geforce GT 640 or higher. You can go for something less but your gaming will suffer.
I personally dislike HP laptops, always had issues with them overheating or having really bad batteries. (Mostly the Pavilion series)
Don't really know what you mean about rating.

well, for starters, you need to decide what size, common are 15" and 17" with smaller 11", 13" and 14" sizes being in the ultrabook range, and larger 18" and 22" being in the workstation/production range

for gaming you want something with a discrete graphics card, most are using Nvidia cards, and of them, you want to make sure it's a GTX model and not a GT

brands to avoid generally are based on customer support, of those, Asus and MSI, that being said, Asus and MSI both make some of the best notebooks, but if there is a problem you will not be having a fun time dealing with their support lines

I'd prefer around 15'' as this is what I've had in the past.

---------- Post added 2013-01-18 at 03:20 PM ----------

Originally Posted by n0cturnal

You want an Intel I5 or I7 CPU of the 3xxx series.
AMD Radeon 76xx, Nvidia Geforce GT 640 or higher. You can go for something less but your gaming will suffer.
I personally dislike HP laptops, always had issues with them overheating or having really bad batteries. (Mostly the Pavilion series)
Don't really know what you mean about rating.

Bad bettery and overheating. Damn right. Mine's an HP, the plastic between the hardware started coming apart from me treating it really well! No dropping, no smashing, nothing. Just simply started coming apart.

---------- Post added 2013-01-18 at 03:21 PM ----------

Originally Posted by n0cturnal

You want an Intel I5 or I7 CPU of the 3xxx series.
AMD Radeon 76xx, Nvidia Geforce GT 640 or higher. You can go for something less but your gaming will suffer.
I personally dislike HP laptops, always had issues with them overheating or having really bad batteries. (Mostly the Pavilion series)
Don't really know what you mean about rating.

As for the rating my friend mentioned the system rating. You know on the scale of 1-7.9?

Well the 7670M is less powerful than the GT 640M as you can see in the list I posted before. Also I find it weird that they are only using 1 RAM stick, I'm not sure how important dual channel is for laptops but I find it odd.

Check out digital storm, they dont ship to NZ though you can make a support ticket and ask them if they will do so, however they require a wired transfer for over-seas purchases. Their laptops are fairly cheap and are defiantly cheaper than major brands such as HP and Acer most of the time.

You wont be getting a 17 inch with that budget though, look for 15 inches.

Here is what I purchased. I have been completely satisfied with it so far. And yeah, I know it's a refurb, but thats why I bought the extended warranty through squaretrade. Paid less than $1000 with the warranty.